The LOTR Fanfiction Guide That May Save Your Life
by red mage1
Summary: A handy guide to writing your own Lord of the Rings fanfics. We are not responsible for any personal injury that may result from use of this guide.
1. Introduction

_Lord of the Rings_ fanfiction. A crowded genre, full of bad writing. Like this, a paragraph with full of nothing but sentence fragments.

The first, and easiest, thing to remember is to avoid Mary Sues. You'll know if one of characters is a Mary Sue, because if she is reviewers will flame you faster than Harry Potter in Salem.

"But I don't want to be burnt at the stake!" you say. Well, we don't want you to, either. That's why this guide to writing LOTR fanfiction exists. The next thing to remember is canon, or what actually happened in the books. We'll start with a little questions and answer session of frequently asked questions before we dive headfirst into the recap.

1) _Can I have evil Elves in my fic?_ No. Elves are _always_ good. There are no Dark Elves except the Moriquendi who don't count because they're in the Silmarillion. Elves never did anything evil, except for taking a blasphemous oath that started a war that lasted an entire age wherein countless people died to no avail, killing their own people, including women and children, to steal ships or Silmarils, sending a Man on a suicide quest so he couldn't marry the sender's daughter, jailing innocent dwarves, and a few other insignificant things like these. Elves must always be good and noble.

2) _Are there ninjas in Middle-Earth?_ Yes, but they're all hiding. That's why they're not in the movies or the books.

3) _Are there any other Wizards besides Gandalf and Saruman in Middle-Earth?_ Yes. Originally five Wizards came to Middle-Earth: Saruman the White, Gandalf the Grey, Radagast the Brown, Erik the Red, and Scottie the Black Watch Plaid.

4) _I read some of the Silmarillon. Why didn't those Valar guys just lay down the law and turn Sauron into a lump of charcoal?_ Because that would be cheating.

5) _Why aren't there any half-elves in Middle-Earth?_ There are. Elrond is a half-elf.

6) _Really?_ Yeah. Elrond's father, the half-elf Eärendil the Mariner, and his sons were given the choice by Eru Illúvatar of being either mortal or immortal. Then Eärendil sailed in his ship through the sky with a gem that Elves killed each other over on his brow.

7) _ Dude, you made all that up._ That's not a question.


	2. Fellowship of the Ring

::Fellowship of the Ring::

The Fellowship of the Ring opens in the Shire, which most experts agree represents, of course, Canada. The peaceful hobbits were happy farming their little crops until, out of the blue, that crazy old bloke Bilbo Baggins (who was based off a character from a Leonard Nimoy song) decided to have a birthday party that an equally crazy Wizard named Gandalf decided to attend. There, Bilbo put on the Ring, which he was never supposed to do because if he did The Terrorists Have Already Won. Gandalf, of course, beat the poor fool senseless and gave the Ring to his son, Frodo. Bilbo was exiled to Rivendell, where he spent the rest of his life.

Now, Frodo kept the Ring for a little while, then Gandalf returned to tell him the Ring was Evil, and he demonstrated this by throwing it in the fire. Gandalf explained to Frodo all about the War of the Last Alliance and its battles and its important people like Sauron, Gil-galad, Elendil, Narsil, and Isildur. ("There will be a test on this," said Gandalf.) Frodo was told to flee from the Shire to Bree because Sauron was looking for the Ring. He took three companions with him, Sam, Merry, and Pippin, whose real names were Samwise, Murdock, and Penguin. The four traveled on their long, arduous quest fraught with peril and ever-present danger, until they stood in Mordor at the base of Mount Doom, and Frodo said "Wait a minute, Sam. I do believe I left the Ring at home." And they had to go all the way back.

This time carrying the Ring, the hobbits, in the book, met some Elves and a... thing... named Tom Bombadil. Tom is unaffected by the Ring, so of course becomes the new Ringbearer, free of its temptations and dangers. Yeah, and maybe fast food is really food. Tom, apparent not caring whether Middle-Earth is decimated, stays put in his little forest the whole book.

Finally, they get to Bree, where they meet Strider/Aragorn/Estel/Telecontar/Elfstone/Elessar/Viggo/Dunedain/Thorongil/Envinvatar/Dúnadan/Skippy. He tells them everyone has to flee, because Ringwraiths, which are actually fanboys in black cloaks, are after the Ring, which they want so they can spy on Arwen. Naturally, Aragorn wants to prevent this so he starts leading the four hobbits to Rivendell.

Meanwhile, Gandalf has problems of his own. He went to seek help from the head of the Wizards, Saurman the White. However, when Gandalf begins talking about the Ring, he learns he has been betrayed. Saruman betrayed the Order of Wizards, joining with Sauron. When the Dark Lord found out, via Seeing Stone, Saurman could play a mean bass guitar, he offered him a spot in his band the Orodruin Five, consisting of Sauron (lead guitar), the Witch-King (rhythm guitar), Shelob (drums), and Tom Bombadil (vocals). (This is, of course, the book version. In the movie, Saurman's instrument was inexplicably changed to tambourine.) An angry Gandalf the Grey attacks Saruman, who is forced, in self-defense, to lock him on the roof.

Back to Strider/Aragorn/ect. and the Hobbits, they find themselves being attacked by Ringwraiths as a result of something stupid done by Merry and Pippin. (Tip: Merry and Pippin are always doing stupid things. If one of them does something smart, like program a VCR to show the right time, reviewers will notice they are out of character and feed you to wolves.) Fortunately, Aragorn is able to beat them back by taking a Silmaril out of his pocket and beating them with it.

In the confusion, Frodo is somehow stabbed by a Ringwraith, and Aragorn is worried about him because tetanus shots haven't been invented yet. He takes him toward Rivendell, where they meet... Glorfindel! Not Arwen, Glorfindel! Even mentioning Glorfindel proves you read the books and gives you canon points, and you get more each time you mention him. Glorfindel, Glorfindel, Glorfindel. Well, Glorfindel throws Aragorn on the back of horse to escape from the Ringwraiths, crying out _"Noro lim, noro lim, Asfaloth!"_ (Which means, in Elvish, "Hi ho, Silver, away!") Which the Ringwraiths begin to catch up, he kills them with CGI effects.

When Frodo awakens in Rivendell, he is greeted by L. Rond, who founded Scientology back in the Second Age. There, he meets many important boring people who tell him important boring legends. He also reunites with Gandalf, who explained how he escaped from Saurman's tower: "a Wizard did it."

Representatives from Middle-Earth all meet in Rivendell to decide what to do about the Ring. The representatives, of course, vote themselves a pay raise and go on an all-expense-paid vacation to Valinor, leaving only Boromir, Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, the hobbits, Gandalf, and Mary Sue to take the Ring to be destroyed. (Mary Sue was fed to wolves by Elrond, mumbling something about her messing up the symbolism.)

Before the Fellowship leaves, Frodo's uncle Bilbo has some a couple of gifts for him. One is a mithril coat, which was Bilbo earlier stole from an honest, hardworking dragon, and the other a short sword called Sting that Bilbo stole from honest, hardworking trolls. Having unloaded his hot goods, Biblo flees the country.

The group originally headed south on a direct, non-deadly route. However, Gandalf spotted a flock of birds in this sky. Him being the delusional old Wizard he is, possibly due to the effects of "pipe weed" (remember kids, winners don't do drugs), Gandalf believes they are the spies of Saruman and forces the Fellowship to take a detour through the gap of Rohan.

Or they would go through, if not for the efforts of the Enemy. Saruman plugs in his amp and starts rocking out to _A Elbereth Gilthoniel_ (literally, "Stairway to Heaven") and the powerful bass notes cause massive avalanches. Rather than go onward and get cold, Gandalf suggests they go through Moria where the Balrog is.

The Nine Companions arrive at the doors of Moria, where a riddle is inscribed over the doors. It is a very clever riddle, but Frodo figures out you open the door by saying the name of the favorite fruit of the builder of the door: "melon."

Inside the mines of Moria, the Fellowship walks around and sees dead dwarves, until Pippin does something stupid and orcs and trolls attack them. Of course, these are quickly defeated, but then the Balrog shows up. The Balrog chases them, until the resident delusional Wizard gets the idea he can defeat it. For some reason, he is able to knock the Balrog into a bottomless pit, but trips and falls in after it. All the Fellowship are secretly relieved.

The Fellowship trudges onward, making their way to Lothlórien. There, they meet Galadriel and her husband, Glorfindel. There Galadriel says a whole bunch of cryptic stuff to Frodo that doesn't make any sense at the time, but later on Frodo discovers that Galadriel was "drunk as a dwarf" at the time. Unaware of this fact, Frodo offers her the Ring. She starts to take it, then gets all scary and says even more cryptic nonsense. The intoxicated Elf then gives the hobbit the Phial of Eärendil, which is basically a bottle of light. No, I don't know what good it is either. I'm a writer, not a mind-reader.

As they go onward, Boromir decides to take the Ring from Frodo. This fails, and a battle ensues because of his stupidity. This makes Merry and Pippin fell better because for once it isn't their fault. However, the battle ends with Boromir dead, Merry and Pippin captured, and Frodo and Sam going to Mordor on their own.

Discussion Questions

1. Can you create an original character more out of place than Tom Bombadil? _(Hint: No.)_

2. Was the riddle on the door dumb or what?

3. Do you know all of Aragorn's names? If so, why?


	3. The Two Towers

::The Two Towers::

_The Two Towers_ opens with Gandalf falling down into the pit with the Balrog. The crazy guy turns out to be not so worthless after all when he kills the thing on the way down. Finally, he lands at the bottom and find a bottle labeled "Drink Me."

No, sorry, that's part of the summary of _Alice in Wonderland_. He ends up sort of dead, then comes back as Gandalf the White. This teaches kids an important lesson: if you fall off a cliff, you turn into a cooler version of yourself. Why don't you try it right now? I'll wait.

Meanwhile, the captives Merry and Pippin were being carried to Isengard by the Uruk-hai. However, the Uruk-hai were ambushed by the Rohirrim, which are apparent so important they get their own plural form. The riders kill all the orcs (for being orcs) and burn their corpses, because digging graves is hard work and not nearly as fun. Somehow, Merry and Pippin's brains start functioning and they escape during the battle.

Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli ran into the Riders of Rohan, who thought about killing the three but decided not to. The riders, led by Éomer, take the three to the smoldering pile of corpses, where it appears Merry and Pippin are dead, which they aren't. The two hobbits actually wandered off into the woods, where they met an Ent named Treebeard.

As the two hobbits are hanging out with the walking tree, Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas get notion the hobbits are still alive and wander into Fangorn forest looking for them. The three run into Gandalf, who is now Gandalf the White. He explains to them how he came back: "a Wizard did it." He tells them Merry and Pippin were probably already eaten by the Ents and that they need to go to Rohan.

At Rohan, the maiden Éowyn suspects Grima Wormtounge, advisor to Théoden king, is up to something, and indeed he is. Grima, for the longest time, has brainwashed the king by inserting backwards messages into his music until he began to believe three things: Saruman is good, Gandalf is bad, and Paul is dead. The first two fact don't bother him, but the thought of his favorite Beatle being dead sends him into a nearly comatose depression.

Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, and Gandalf make their way into the Hall of Théoden, after being strip-searched by the guards to make sure they weren't terrorists and having to leave all metal objects in a basket outside. Once inside, Gandalf heard the king mumbling "I bury Paul" over and over again. Gandalf tried to explain that Paul wasn't dead, but Grima kept pointing out the "clues" on the cover of _Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band_ (a translation of the Elvish name _Sergeant Peppero eressëar óri nossë lindalemo_.) Finally, Gandalf resorted to the tried and true method of knocking people senseless, this time Saruman from hundreds of miles away, bringing Théoden back to his senses.

Théoden knows an attack on Rohan is imminent, so he decides to take all the people of Rohan and, in a brilliant display of strategy, move them into a fortress called Helm's Deep that would be impossible to escape from during battle. The Rohirrim and the four former Fellowship members walk toward Helm's Deep. Here, for whatever reason, the movie makes it appear the shieldmaiden Éowyn loves Aragorn. (In the book, she loves Glorfindel.)

Meanwhile, Treebeard summons the other Ents and begins a thing called Entmoot. The first two days are taken up by the Ents agreeing Entmoot would be an excellent name for a rock band. It takes them nearly forever, but the Ents vote to go to war against Saruman.

At Helm's Deep, reinforcements arrive from the Elves, in the form of archers from Lothlórien led by Glorfindel. A huge battle ensues, and a bunch of stuff gets blown up. Eventually, though, the Rohirrim emerge victorious.

The Ents, on the other hand, attack Isengard and utterly annihilate Saruman's forces, teaching the recurring moral that trees are dangerous things to be feared and respected, and all must love them and despair.

And that wraps up our summary of the Two Towers... Wait, I think Sam and Frodo were in there somewhere...

Frodo and Sam made their way to Mordor, but somehow managed to get lost and ambushed by Sméagol/Gollum, the schizophrenic creature that wants the Ring, which he calls "My Precious." Sam wants to kill him, but Frodo decides to enslave Gollum and force him to show them the way to Mordor.

Gollum leads the two the Black Gate, where they see an oliphaunt, which Sam is really excited about. This may not be an important detail, but I like writing it, because oliphaunt is a cool word. There, the two hobbits manage to get captured by Captain Faramir.

In the book, he doesn't want the Ring and pretty much lets them go. In the movie, Faramir plans to take the two hobbits, and the Ring, back to Minas Tirith. However, a Nazgûl attacks, and it wants the Ring. It splashes red paint all over Frodo and tries to get the Ring from him, screaming "Kaili! Kaili!" Frodo tries to remove the Ring from around his neck and give it to the Ringwraith, but he can't get the chain back over his head. However, he manages to escape somehow.

They find Gollum, who has a good explanation for what's happened so far :"a Wizard did it, yes they did." The second movie ends with Gollum planning to take the hobbits to the lair of Shelob, but the book continues. Gollum does lead the two hobbits to Shelob. Frodo, in his heroism, gets caught and a web spun around him. Sam, in desperation, uses the first thing he could grab, the Light in a Jar that Galadriel gave Frodo. Since that did nothing but hurt the spider's eyes, he stabs her in the stomach with Sting and she runs off. Guessing that Frodo is dead, he takes the Ring and sets off from Mount Doom on his own.

Discussion Question

What happened to that guy from _The Hobbit_ that could turn into a bear? You never hear about him anymore.


	4. Return of the King

::Return of the King::

_Return of the King_ opens with a cool scene left out of the movie. Gandalf the White goes to Isengard to find Saruman the White hiding in his tower from the vengeful fury of the trees. Gandalf, noticing there are now a surplus of "the Whites" in the Istari, he kicks Saruman out of the Order of Wizards. He does this by breaking his staff, taking away his secret decoder pen, and calling him a girl.

Meanwhile, up in Rohan, Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas set off on the Path of the Dead. Éowyn wanted to go, insisting that she could help him. ("Help," in this instance, probably means "have intimate relation with".) However, Aragorn told her to stay behind, because the Dead Men would be really desperate after not seeing a woman for 3,000 years. The Dead Men were Men whose leader took an oath to help Isildur, but backed out at the last minute in the first occurrence of the famed "Bay of Pigs" strategy. As a result, they were cursed to never know restful peace. Aragorn braves the path and offers the dead rest if they fight for him. They agree, and are released from his service after non-important battle somewhere between Rohan and Gondor.

Pippin was taken from Isengard to Minas Tirith by Gandalf. There, he meets the Steward of Gondor, Lord Denethor. This old man seems nice for a while, but it turns out he is unwilling to yield the throne to Aragorn. Ultimately, he gets really, really drunk to cope with the thought of Aragorn becoming king, spills alcohol over himself, and says his last words "hey y'all, watch this," before striking a match and catching flames faster than a fanfic about a half-elf, half-goddess princess that marries both Legolas and Aragorn. With the Steward dead, Oliver Cromwell takes the throne and the Puritans take control of the government.

Wait, sorry, that's part of the summary of British history. What happened was that Faramir, son of Denethor, refused to take the throne when the real king, Aragorn, was going to return. Indeed he does, going south with the Riders of Rohan. However, Sauron strikes hard at the White City. He sends not only legions of orcs, trolls, and people who make popup ads, but also his allies the Easterlings (who worship bunnies and eggs) and the Haradrim, also called Men of the South.

(Analysis: Common consensus among Tolkien fans is that the Haradrim represent Republicans. The main clue is their use of _mûmakil_, which are really just oliphaunts, the symbol of the Republican party. The other giveaway is that they decide to attack another country for no reason. On the flip side, the Democrats are represented by the people of Bree, who seem nice but in the long run are useless.)

Two of our old friends show up during the battle: Merry and Éowyn. Éowyn, who apparently is into crossdressing, runs into the Witch-King. She fights him valiantly, allowing Merry, whose brain cells suddenly started to work, to stab and destroy the Ringwraith. The battle finally ends in victory for Gondor. However, afterward, Aragorn becomes delusional due to prolonged Arwen deprivation and orders all armies to attack the Black Gate of Mordor. At the Black Gate, Aragorn challenges Sauron to battle. However, a strange being called Mouth of Sauron, whose name will surely lead to bad slash fics, appears and takes up the challenge.

Now, back to Sam and Frodo. Sam, the current Ringbearer, sees Frodo, who may or may not be dead, being taken by orcs to Minas Morgul. Sam goes in alone to rescue him, and succeeds because the orcs begin to fight among themselves over whether Balrogs have wings. He rescues Frodo, and the two proceed towards Mount Doom.

Finally, the two reach the Orodruin and the Cracks of Doom. Frodo moves to throw the Ring into the crack, but he is unable to. The Ring's power over him is too great, and he puts the Ring on, alerting all Mordor to his presence. Someone Frodo knew from before that had a special relationship with the Ring appears: Tom Bombadil.

No, seriously, it was Gollum. He attacks Frodo and bites off his finger and the Ring. In his happiness over getting the Precious back, he begins to Riverdance. The rapid foot movement causes the ledge Gollum was standing on to crack, and he falls to his death, taking the Ring with him.

With the Ring destroyed, everything is saved. All the good guys (minus Théoden, who is dead) gather to see Aragorn being coronated King of Gondor and his wife Glorf... er, Arwen, becoming queen.

This part here wasn't in the movie, so pay attention. The hobbits return to the Shire to find it's all being ruled by some guy named Sharkey, who turns out to be none other than The Saruman Formerly Known as White. Fortunately for Frodo, a drunken hobbit stumbles by The Saruman Formerly Known as White blabbering about trees walking, and in fear the ex-Wizard repents and becomes a monk.

Years later, Frodo has grown old. When the last of the Elves set sail into the West, toward Númenor, he and Bilbo go with them, and thus ends the Tale of the _Lord of the Rings_.

Discussion Questions

1. Would you dress up like a man to save your people? If you are male and said no, explain.

2. What is Mouth of Sauron's real name? _(Hint: Sue)_

3. Did you know the letters in Bilbo Baggins can be rearranged to spell "Gag Lois Bobbin" ?

Author's Notes: Thank you for reading my little babbling. In case you haven't guessed, none of this is meant to be taken seriously. If I somehow helped you write better fanfiction, I sincerely apologize. I wrote this "story" based heavily on the style of the great humor writer Dave Barry, whose stuff you should all read. Leave a review if you like.


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